What happens when people who were vilified by elites as idiots end up being right?

For several years, elites in America have lectured us that if we would simply genuflect to their presentation of the “facts” about crises facing Colorado and our country, the scales on our eyes formed by shallow and ill-informed opinions would fall away.

Yet, time and again, what the elites see as the great unwashed are proven right — with the once rock-solid and well-earned credibility of our institutions taking self-inflicted hammer shots to the face.

A thunderclap came out of Aurora in recent days regarding the deep and continuing concern over the presence of a violent Venezuelan gang know as Tren de Aragua, or TdA. For weeks, a confusing, and often deliberately clouded debate has been ongoing about the depth and the breadth of the gang’s activities in Aurora, including whether it has taken over rundown poorly managed apartment complexes in the city.

Many of the elites, including an echo chamber of the governor along with local (and national) media derided these claims as figments of the imagination, focusing on code violations at the apartment buildings instead of the concerns of terrorized residents. The elites got more and more exercised as former President Donald Trump took notice and eventually held a rally in Aurora, labeling his illegal immigrant deportation plan “Operation Aurora.”

A great example of how out-of-touch media elites go off the rails was the comment by an ABC anchor interviewing vice presidential candidate JD Vance claiming the problem was confined to “just a handful of apartment complexes.”

Which prompted Vance to rightly retort that the idea that a violent foreign gang can take over residences in 21st-century America — and that the problem is Trump’s response. rather than Kamala Harris’ open-borders policy — is appalling. Then came the emails,

Aurora Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, who has been fighting to get the facts about TdA activities in Aurora, released emails showing that local law enforcement was aware of this threat nearly a year ago. Worse, one of the emails alleges that TdA wants to set up its headquarters in the Denver area in part because of Denver’s failed sanctuary city laws. Whoops.

This is the latest example of important institutions in society playing tiddlywinks with their reputation. In this case their obsessive desire to validate their pro-illegal immigrant narrative, and take a chunk out of Trump (and Jurinsky), overtook the real plight of voiceless, vulnerable residents in hell-hole apartments who are afraid for their lives.

This daily disconnect is a growing problem here in Colorado and across the country.

Yuval Levin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who studies the crisis of decay in credibility among vital institutions, recently wrote that their path to restoration requires more than just government, media, law enforcement and others competently doing their jobs.

They need self-restraint. The parade of examples of elite institutions saying and doing anything that justifies their desired outcomes — what Levin labels “advancing political and cultural agendas unrelated to their missions” — has resulted in citizens, particularly on the center-right, doubting voices that once earned trust and confidence.

This cratering of credibility is compounded by the sneering, mocking and arrogant head-shaking responses when the assertions of the elite are challenged. When serious doubts are raised, people who refuse to uncritically accept liberals’ contentions are called stupid, uninformed, conspiracy theorists. Or they are blinded by their racism, sexism or homophobia.

Until, as night follows day, it’s proven that many of their concerns had valid bases.

The Aurora gang issue is but the latest of what Levin calls “radically self-indulgent” contentions blowing up like Hamas pagers.

The list of the debunked liberal orthodoxy that Americans questioned at their own peril is long. Draconian COVID restrictions. Abortion pills so innocuously safe that they can be handed out like Pez candy. Allowing minors to access gender-altering treatments, and rename themselves, without parents being notified. Biological men competing in women’s sports. An unaccountable flow of tax money can improve education. The palpable rise in crime in Colorado is simply a misunderstanding of statistics.

It was once leftist activists who loudly said that citizens should “question authority.” Today, it is conservatives who are countercultural, and they continue to score victories by bravely and tenaciously standing up and speaking out against the liberal elite.

Sean Duffy, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area.